GM’s Opel to halt St. Petersburg production

IlkaKopplin

FRANKFURT—General Motors Co’s Opel unit, responding to the slump in the Russian market, will halt production for nearly two months at its St. Petersburg, Russia, facility and review its plans for the region, an Opel spokesman said Thursday.

Opel, the German arm of GM
US:GM
will shut production at the plant from March 23 to May 15 this year. In 2012, Opel had said it would invest $1 billion in Russia over five years, much of it dedicated to more than doubling production capacity in St. Petersburg to 230,000 vehicles a year by this year, and increasing the workforce to 4,000 from 2,500 people at that time. Some of the investment was also aimed at beefing up production at GM’s joint venture with Avtovaz in Togliatti, Russia.

Developments, however, have gone in the other direction. Last year, Opel reduced the number of shifts to one from two in St. Petersburg. The workforce had by then dwindled to some 2,000 people, 500 of whom were offered severance packages in September. Since then, more severance packages and natural attrition have whittled the workforce down to 1,000, the spokesman said. Last year, just about 37,000 vehicles rolled off the assembly line at the plant.

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